Critics said the doco “Prime Minister” lacks depth into policy decision making.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has touched down in New York City ahead of the UN General Assembly, where he is expected to meet Donald Trump for the first time since the US election.

The PM told reporters at John F Kennedy International Airport that he hoped to boost "increased peace and security and stability around the world" as he arrived on American soil alongside fiancee Jodie Haydon.

"Australia plays an important role. We are a trusted partner and an ally," Albanese said.

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Albanese said his stopover at the UN General Assembly would provide a platform to promote Australia's interests on the global stage.

"We also have particular issues to advance, such as our social media ban, where Australia is leading the world," Albanese added.

It is anticipated the PM will meet Trump face-to-face during his time in NYC, however it remains unlikely the pair will organise an official sit-down.

A potential meeting between the two leaders has been a key topic looming over the first months of Albanese's second term as prime minister.

Any hopes of a meeting upon Albanese's arrival were dashed as Trump will be in Arizona to attend the funeral of Charlie Kirk.

READ MORE: Optus has many questions to answer after another staggering failure

Albanese has remained coy on the prospect of sitting down with Trump after being asked about it repeatedly since the May election.

When asked by the ABC earlier this week if an official meeting had been scheduled, the PM would not confirm anything was locked in.

READ MORE: Calls for Optus CEO to resign after four people die during outage

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"I gotta tell you as I go around Australia or indeed anywhere else, it is journalists who are obsessed by this," Albanese said of speculation over a potential meeting with Trump.

Albanese is also set to spruik Australia's fresh emissions reduction targets in NYC this week.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has joined Albanese in the US following his announcement of the federal government's target of cutting emissions by 62 to 70 per cent by 2035.

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DoC staff say the whale showed signs of malnutrition and sickness.

OPINION: Triple zero is sacred in this country. We hold dear the ability to reach emergency services when faced with a crisis. Paramedics, police and fire crews are a simple phone call away.

As part of their licence to operate in this country, telecommunications providers must guarantee they can deliver calls to emergency services.

The failure of Optus to provide that essential service is beyond the pale and now tragic in the extreme, with confirmation of a fourth death as a direct result, including an 8-week-old baby boy.

READ MORE: Devastated family discover Adelaide woman desperately tried to call Triple Zero to save her own life during Optus outage

"Reprehensible" is how a furious South Australian Premier described Optus' actions – not just for the catastrophic triple zero outage, but for failing to keep police and government in the loop in the three affected states and territories – South Australia, West Australia and the Northern Territory.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas says there was a 'bewildering' lack of information from Optus, with SA Police only given the names and addresses of those who died after the Premier made a direct call to the Optus CEO Stephen Rue. That is shameful.

It's staggering that a routine system upgrade could fail in such a catastrophic way, but it's made even worse by the fact Optus let the country down with a triple zero outage on a much larger scale only two years ago.

READ MORE: Calls for Optus CEO to resign after four people die during outage

In 2023, more than two thousand people across the country had no access to emergency services after a nationwide outage from Optus, which also failed to conduct welfare checks on hundreds of people who tried but couldn't get through to triple zero.

It was luck more than anything that no one died then.

Not this time.

600 people were not able to call triple zero during this outage, and four families are now grieving loved ones because of this corporate catastrophe.

Optus was fined $12 million dollars after the 2023 network outage and vowed it would never happen again. And here we are.

Optus has many questions to answer.

READ MORE: 'Dreadful tragedy': Fourth death from Optus outage confirmed

Why was there no in-built alarm to alert the telco that the network upgrade had blocked Triple Zero calls? Optus had no idea the system wasn't working and did nothing to fix it for at least 13 hours.

It then took 32 hours for the public to be told.

Normal calls were unaffected, but two people contacted Optus directly hours after the emergency services system was down to alert the telco they couldn't get through.

Those customers were ignored by Optus which failed to escalate their calls.

Australians need to know that every telecommunications provider can function and allow them to reach emergency services in their time of greatest need.

If Optus can't deliver, perhaps it's time to reconsider the telco's licence to operate in this country.

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The hunt for accused cop killer Dezi Freeman is showing no signs of slowing down, with police swooping on a northeast Victoria home.

Heavily armed officers surrounded a home in Myrtleford, where officers detained and cuffed a hooded man.

His property was raided for a firearm prohibition order search.

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"All the army people were on the road, and they said we couldn't come down the street," witnesses said.

The hunt for accused double murder Dezi Freeman is now in it's 26th day with officers still working to bring justice for two of their own.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart were ambushed while serving a warrant in Victoria's high country.

Today, their colleagues and friends honoured them at Albert Park Lake in a 71 kilometre relay, raising money for the fallen officers' families.

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"We are one big blue family," Kim Bramwell of Victoria Police said.

"And we all do come together in times like this."

Victoria Police's Sarah Boyle worked with De Waart-Hottart.

"So it's very very near and dear to my heart as well and our units heart as well," Boyle said.

Run to Remember was organised by Senior Constable Alex Prestney who knows the pain of losing a loved one in the line of duty – his brother killed in the Eastern Freeway tragedy.

"We felt that we just wanted to do something knowing exaclty what it feels like and what the support from the community feels like and it was our way of giving back," he said.

As the officers ran around Albert Park, their minds were also on their colleagues searching in the state's north.

Despite police receiving hundreds of tips, there still haven't been any confirmed sightings of the fugitive.

"We feel for the members who are up there working tirelessly to try and get this to a resolution," Prestney said.

"We fully support and have our love for everyone that's involved in everything so far."

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Kiwi Lotto lovers have been hoping to be $5 million richer after tonight’s draw.

Strong wind and heavy rain warnings are in place over the South Island this weekend.

A fourth death has been confirmed by authorities following a technical failure during an Optus upgrade blocked calls to Triple Zero in three states for 13 hours.

Optus has first announced the fault led to three deaths, which were found to include an eight-week-old boy from Gawler West in South Australia, a 68-year-old woman from the Adelaide suburb of Queenstown and a 74-year-old man from Willetton, Western Australia.

This afternoon, WA Premier Roger Cook's office and WA Police revealed a 49-year-old from Perth also died after he unsuccessfully tried to contact Triple Zero.

READ MORE: Pilot's body recovered from plane crash wreckage in NSW national park

Optus said they were "saddened to learn of a new fatality in Western Australia" but would "continue to work with WA Police" to investigate the death.

"I am deeply saddened by this further news and extend my heartfelt condolences to the person's family and friends," Optus CEO Stephen Rue said in a statement.

"As stated earlier today I have asked for a full review into the circumstances relating to the failed network upgrade and impact on the Triple Zero network.

"I will also be working with my board and executive team to enable a full independent review of the entire incident including all the impacts and related information. This includes working closely with relevant agencies to establish the full facts."

The telco's chief executive officer revealed the outage in a snap press conference last night, saying it had resulted in the deaths of three people, after about 600 Triple Zero calls were unable to be made on Thursday.

He has since revealed a botched fire wall upgrade affected calls in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Rue confirmed today the firewall upgrade began at 12.30am on Thursday and two customers contacted the company's call centre about the outage at about 9am.

He said an early review of the incident suggested the information was not escalated to the appropriate department.

Two complaints have since been raised with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

"I will be able to say more about these in due course but I do want to be transparent that we now know we were informed by two individuals that they could not connect into Triple Zero," Rue said.

"This information was not surfaced with the relevant escalation at that time."

At about 1.30pm, another customer contacted Optus and Triple Zero access was restored.

Rue said about 600 people could not call emergency services during the outage.

Politicians slam telco

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas blasted the telco CEO last night, claiming that neither he nor the state's emergency services were given any information about the two deaths in the state.

"South Australian police didn't know. No one in SAS or ambulance service knew; my office didn't know. But then they conducted a press conference," said Malinauskas.

"I have not witnessed such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this," he added.

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Western Australia's Premier, Roger Cook, also spoke out against the telco, deeming the outage "completely unacceptable."

Authorities that run emergency services across South Australia and Western Australia have both said they had no idea about the emergency service breakdown until the telco's impromptu 5.45pm press conference.

In 2023, Optus was fined $12 million for a similar outage that cut 2000 people off from contacting triple-zero.

Following this incident, they vowed it would never happen again.

Federal communications minister Anika Wells said Optus has "let Australians down when they needed them the most".

"We never want to see failures like this happen and we're disappointed that it's happened again," Wells said.

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"No Triple Zero outage is acceptable and this will be thoroughly investigated.

"It would've been incredibly distressing for people to call Triple Zero in their time of need and not be able to get through.

"The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences and personally my thoughts are with those families today.

"Optus and all telecommunications providers have obligations under Australian law to ensure they enable emergency services calls.

"Optus has let Australians down when they needed them the most and this isn't good enough."

Tech expert Trevor Long described this outage as a "more fundamental failure than the previous one" because, despite having network coverage, people were unable to contact emergency services.

"The Optus network overall was could make calls, take calls, call each other," he told Weekend Today.

"But the triple-zero component of the network didn't work."

The outage was caused by a technical failure in a network update, which brought down emergency calls across South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia.

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Brian Tamaki has promoted the vigil as a ‘turning point’ for New Zealand.